Success Against the Odds

By Peter Rooney

[Finance] In October 2008 Amherst faced a question that would shape its plans for years to come: With the stock market plunging and its own endowment taking a 23 percent hit, should it abandon its nascent fundraising campaign?

The college chose to push forward. Almost five years and more than $502 million later, it’s safe to say the decision was sound.

“The campaign was not only launched during a challenging time,” said President Biddy Martin in September, “but it succeeded during the worst downturn since the Great Depression.” The effort—which concluded Sept. 20–21 with a campus celebration—roared past its initial goal of $425 million. The number of donors was an extraordinary 20,338.

To Martin, the campaign’s success is an endorsement of its objectives: maintaining need-blind admission and financial aid, capitalizing upon an increasingly diverse student body and fostering faculty-student research.

Also noteworthy are the high number of anonymous donations, totaling more than $138 million (including separate anonymous gifts of $100 million and $25 million), and the high proportion of unrestricted gifts, about 47 percent of the campaign total, Martin says.

Acknowledging the severity of the recession, organizers did not simply ask for money: “We encouraged and recognized alumni engagement as a form of giving,” Morey says. This engagement included volunteering, offering internships, attending Amherst events and interacting with the college through social media and on its website.

“I’ve been hard-pressed to come across somebody who didn’t at some point connect with the college in some way,” Morey says. “It’s incredible.”